


Into The Wild

by TrashCan_Inc



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), My Chemical Romance, The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic)
Genre: Adventure, Battery City, Friendship, Gen, Journey, MCR, Multi Chapter, Origin Story, Pre-2019, Pre-Canon, Pre-Comics, The Zones, Trans Kobra Kid (Danger Days), Tried to give the killjoys like, but dw they'll use the familiar codenames after a little bit, escaping Bat City, gerard way - Freeform, neutral town, normal people names that aren't the mcr member names, pre-album
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:40:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22174954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrashCan_Inc/pseuds/TrashCan_Inc
Summary: The story of how four kids in the desert started a gang.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	1. The Milligram Brothers

**Author's Note:**

> To avoid any confusion, I’m gonna preface that I gave the Killjoys names that are not Gerard, Mikey, Ray, and Frank. Party Poison was given the name Gerard Way said he originally almost called him - Mike Milligram (so the “Mike” being referred to is not Mikey Way). 
> 
> And I gave Kobra the name James.

It started with two kids, a plan, and a pile of geology textbooks that could reach the sun. 

Mike Milligram had been walking through the desert for  _ hours _ , the sweltering heat feeling like a solid sheet against his face. Back home in The City, he’d never walked farther than the short distance from his family’s apartment to his school, and even then, it was only on good days they’d let him walk by himself. 

Because it wasn’t like he’d never  _ travelled  _ further than that, by means other than walking, and the Milligram parents knew it - not  _ all  _ of it, of course, but they knew enough. His pile of contraband DVD’s and comic books was telling enough, and they didn’t trust him not to be a bad influence on his  _ sweet, impressionable _ little sibling. 

James Milligram, the aforementioned sibling, was talking Mike’s ear off about Cool Rocks. This had been a common thing in the past few months, and while Mike didn’t know anything about Rock Science, he indulged his brother’s need for someone to Word Dump on, and had even started to enjoy hearing about it. 

But currently, Mike was not enjoying the Rock Science. Because he had words hitting his face and heat hitting his face and light hitting his face and maybe he should have paid attention to those history lessons about sunscreen (that thing they used before the Analogue Wars). 

“You’re not listening to me at  _ all _ , dude,” said James, rolling his eyes. 

“No I am, I just need more brain power to remember how to move my fuckin legs.  _ C’mon lefty, go forward, you can do it! _ ” 

“Maybe you wouldn’t be so hot if you actually researched the desert beforehand?” 

“Hey I know what a fuckin sunscreen is! Besides, I don’t need… don’t need to know what rocks are venomous or edible… if I’m just fuckin  _ hot _ !” 

“How’s this then,” said James, pushing his glasses up so that they caught the sunlight, like an anime character. “Maybe you could’ve realised that wearing a  _ sweater  _ in the desert was a bad idea. Maybe, you could have brought a hat to protect your precious little head from the big scary sun!” 

James was right. He’d tied his school uniform sweater around his waist the second they escaped The Lobby district and hit the sands. He’d even brought a little cap for his head. 

But Mike wasn’t gonna take off his sweater now, as he explained, “you’re gonna get hit with armpit stink the  _ second  _ this badboy comes off!”. 

And he wasn’t gonna wear a hat either. He’d spent all that time in a shitty, grafitti’d Lobby bathroom messily trying to dye his hair the brightest shade of poisonous red, and he wasn’t gonna spend one second in the desert without everyone seeing it. 

_________________________________ 

They had been planning their escape for months and months and weeks and weeks, and they still weren’t sure why they hadn’t done it sooner. Maybe it was Battery City’s infinite promises to keep you safe while it swallowed you whole. 

They’d spend long afternoons making plans together in James’ room, with cheap crayons on the backs of old test papers, curtains drawn for secrecy but for a sliver of hazy golden sunlight letting them see; but then as soon as dinner time came around, they’d always lock the papers away from prying eyes, and forget about them for a little while once more. 

James would go on getting straight A’s, making the family proud, and studying his own hyperfixations in between doing whatever housework their family told him to do. He would never be suspected of plotting an escape, or of any resistance against Better Living Industries. 

He was never able to get out as much as Mike did. Because to family, teachers, and what little friends they were Allowed to have, James was just their timid, overachieving “little girl”. Only Mike even knew his name was James. 

Mike, on the other hand? He could be suspected. Classes were spent colouring his nails in with Sharpie and getting berated for growing his hair out. And the School had a nightmare trying to scrub his  _ beautiful  _ murals off the walls, dramatic scenes of  _ vampires  _ and  _ space aliens  _ and  _ intergalactic superheroes _ that he’d managed to paint in secret-- 

\--And there were the  _ less _ -than-beautiful murals. Everyone remembers the September Dick-pocalypse, even when they told you to forget it. 

But why Mike was really suspected was his frequent trips to the outer Lobby district, the ones James couldn’t always follow him on. It was always an adventure when he could - Mike would hang out with pornodroids and buy pizza for them, they’d graffitti the buildings together and test new painting methods, and hang out with some of Poison’s other friends and have sugar until they puked. 

Even when James couldn’t go along, Mike would always come back with gifts for him - banned comic books and CDs and DVD’s, whatever he could shove into a backpack. James would look up from his books about rocks and snakes, and he and Mike would get immersed in fictional worlds until the wee hours of the morning. They’d arrive to school the next day, vibrating on like 5 cups of coffee just to convince everyone they’d slept properly. 

But in Battery City, word always got out. They always knew something. “That Milligram boy,” they’d say, “I heard he was caught with contraband in his schoolbag” and “I hear he’s been listening to music about death” and “I heard he has more friends than what’s Proper” and “I heard he’s been kissing other boys” and “did you know the pills don’t work for him? And now he’s getting that little sibling of his to stop taking them too”.

And there were only so many times the cops could arrive at your house before they’d stop calling someone a “misguided young man” and start seeing you as a real threat. 

There was only so much family screaming and arguing and crying you could take before you worried about your brother being taken away for good. There were only so many times they would be cops before they’d instead be Scarecrows. 

Because if he got taken away, James knew Mike would never see colour again. Never be able to think up another mural or bedtime story. Never be able to bring any adventure. Never even  _ think _ of another stupid dick doodle. And if Mike was taken, James would be trapped for good. And maybe never be let out of the house again. 

Which is why James was glad for his latest special interest, which he had ample opportunity to research, unbothered. Natural science. Geology. And snakes. 

Because, as James had seen his whole life, Mike knew the City better than anyone. Every backalley, every cheap pizza joint, every friendly droid. Every nook and cranny and quick exit. In those crayon drawings in the dark, Mike could always map the city escape route. 

James needed to learn the desert, to map what came after. 

And that’s what lead to a hasty afternoon of stuffing every necessity, every food scrap and garment and map and irreplaceable favourite comic into their backpacks, and running down the entire city to the lobby, stopping only in a dank bathroom - James defiantly chopped off his hair in ragged clumps, while Mike gave his the shittiest, most uneven dye job. 

They could have cried as they got through the lobby tunnel and got the first sight of bright sand, but as their feet hit the first natural ground they’d ever stood on, their faces were hit with the brightest light they’d ever seen in their lives, and for a split second they thought they’d been caught by a spotlight. 

It was the Sun. They’d never seen it so clearly.

But as they walked, they started to get used to the violent sunshine, and it started becoming less of a problem. In fact, they almost hoped it would become a problem again. 

Because the Sun was getting uncomfortably low, kissing the horizon. And there was nothing but sand, sky, and cacti for miles. The snake kid hadn’t completely studied cacti.


	2. The Village

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Notes of ozone. The Smell of quiet. Even spiders come up for air..."

There were never any fights in the Village. 

You came from somewhere, maybe The City, maybe the sands of The Zones. You came because you had no wish to quarrel. Not with BLi, and certainly not with your neighbours. Sure, there was the fear of searchlights. Maybe it was a bit stinky sometimes. The sun and fire ants were a bit much. But it was Quiet. 

Maybe you were a parent. Or just an old person. The City was too noisy, so after that last bit of excitement of getting out, this became your retirement village. You found it somewhat irritating that your retirement village did have children in it, but it was Quiet. 

There were crackles of radio stations. The houses, being rickety shacks, weren’t entirely soundproof. Sometimes you heard more than you needed to hear. But it was Quiet. 

Some local children would try bring home anything as a pet. Parents would maybe say yes to a lizard, but no to a cockroach. Or yes to a cockroach. Whatever their taste was. But it was-- 

Well. You tried to ignore that one kid who seemed unable to settle for lizards. He brought home more children. 

Multiple times. 

______________________ 

Dorian had developed a habit of talking to himself. It wasn’t because he was lonely - his family were the loveliest people, and he’d befriended every kid who came and went from the village. He wasn’t at a loss for people to talk to. 

It was because, when he was out running errands and collecting water buckets, his eyes were being given such little information, that he needed to create something for his ears. 

When Dorian was younger, he never understood what people meant when they called the Village a “Neutral Town” - no one had yet explained to the curly-haired kiddo what a BLi was, so he didn’t know about being for or against it - so he’d just assumed it was because of being situated in one of the flattest, most featureless, most neutral-looking parts of the desert. 

Imagine every town a pop-punk singer sang about getting out of, dial it up to -11, and you’ll understand why kids came and _went_ so fast. 

Today, while trudging through the desert, Dorian was talking about aliens. 

“I mean, do they even need oxygen?” he asked himself.  
“Yeah, _duh!_ ” he responded.  
“No, but I mean, if ya think about it, we say all creatures need oxygen to live, BUT--” he hopped across a rock almost too-energetically, a few drops of water sloshing out of his bucket.  
“BUT okay, we said that about LIGHT. But look at the sea!”  
“Filled with all that blobby shit!”  
“Filled with all that blobby stuff! ‘Cuz mom’s gonna kill me if I accidentally say swears near her again!”  
“And it’s all sorts of creatures made of pure Blorp.”  
“And some of them live super deep under the sea and get no light and they’re like scary vampires!”  
“So I think we should avoid making assumptions about aliens, y’know?”  
“I concur. I believe we deserve a nobel prize for our science”  
“Do they still make those? If I get a little plastic cup and paint it gold it’ll count I guess.”

He walked a little further, while watching the setting sun and smelling the sweet evening air; thinking about aliens, and imagining them in their ships, jetting above the stars. 

_A sound._

A rustle. 

Dorian stopped. Dad always said to stop when you heard a noise. Run away if you can. Mom always said to show it you were bigger and scarier and could fight. Make _it_ run away. 

He made himself very small as he tiptoed towards the bush, putting down his bucket. 

A kid. He made out the shape of a kid in the bush. They were curled up, and probably cold, and they didn’t seem to have shoes. Were they young? Where they small? Were they new to the desert? 

If they were lost, he could ask his parents to take care of them. And maybe his parents would hate the idea at first, but would warm up to it. And Dorian could be the kid's new sibling and best friend, and they'd have adventures, and explore outside the town, and have fun, and Dorian could stop needing to talk to himself to make sounds for his ears - he wasn't lonely, he would _never_ say he was lonely, he just needed the sounds- and him and his friend could make sounds for each other, maybe even music.They'd catch lizards together, and talk about the stars. They'd find aliens and make them stop BLi with their space canons...

And maybe this friend wouldn't _leave_ so soon. But Dorian wouldn't stop them if they did.

Jet brushed away a bit of bush. Very gently, he didn’t want to frighten them. 

The dirty kid leapt from the bush and bit him immediately.

_________ 

Some miles away, as the sun sank below the horizon, the Miligram brothers made a fire out of crayon drawings, and tried to settle down for the long, long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We meet Jet Star!!! Credit to my friend Ink for coming up with the name "Dorian" for him - his AO3 is sxd_n_mxgicxl 
> 
> We also meet someone else...  
> _________ 
> 
> I'm having a lot of fun writing fic again! If you wanna keep up with my fan art as well, my Twitter is @CanCan_jpg, my instagram is @cancan.jpg, and my Tumblr is @cancan-jpg !


	3. The Doctor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again gonna note to avoid confusion that “Mike” isn’t Mikey Way, but Mike Milligram (the early name for Party Poison) because Gerard is An Bastard and An Binch who named his OC after his brother i guess. James is Kobra Kid.

There were zone-runners born in the city, and zone-runners born in the desert, and you could usually tell which was which by the soap they used.

City-borns smelled like chemicals all the time, like a doctor’s office. If you were fresh from the city, everybody knew, everybody clocked you from farther away than they could spit at you, and gave you the stink-eye until you proved you weren’t some kind of spy.

Sand-pups were young - the Analogue Wars weren’t that long ago, and almost everyone before it was from the city at some point. Sand-pups were on the sands ever since they somersaulted out of the womb, and by the time they were older, you sometimes couldn’t tell them apart from the dust.

Unfortunately, you were also lucky if you found one that used soap. 

__________________

One of Dorian’s favourite features about the area around The Village, was the Slam Van.

The Slam Van was an old truck plastered in colourful stickers, that parked itself just a few miles from the village fence, near what remained of a gas station; at first the Villagers assumed it was Stranger Danger, but after getting to know the occupants, they all agreed they were chill - a loser thirty-something and a teenager he’d basically adopted. This was the same vetting process all new residents of the Village area received.

Dorian had become friends with both occupants. Because this is what Dorian  _ does _ . 

“Pony, you in here?” he called, giving a tinny-sounding  _rat-tat-tat_ on the door and peeking inside.

If no one was in here, he’d check the gas station and diner. But the kid known as Pony grinned and peeked up from behind a speaker box - well, as much as he _could_ peek , with his fringe always covering his eyes. Sometimes Dorian wondered if he _had_ eyes , or if his eyes were like... weird and alien. Or he had a third one. Or maybe--

“Hey ‘fro-dude, did ya bring food for The Bastard?”

“Don’t _call_ him that,” said Dorian, frowning as he placed a crate on the floor. “I went and fetched Tyler’s collection of records, plus some from a few of my other neighbours. D said it would work really well for--”

“You should bring treats for The Bastard sometime. Maybe a chew toy.”

“My parents would kill me if I dug into their supplies! They don’t even know about The B--  _him_ !”

“I think The Bastard is starting to like me. He only clawed at me _once_ today . I think he smelled soap for the first time.”

“That’s... great.”

Pony’s attention was suddenly somewhere behind Dorian. “Oh, doctor’s in!”

A burly, biker-looking bearded man wheeled his chair up the ramp into the van. Doctor D. He was apparently a medic in the Analogue Wars, and had seen many things... violence... blasts... a guy who could stick a whole egg into his mouth and not break it...

But now he was just collecting radio transmitters and camping out in a van. He tried to provide medic services to the Villagers when they asked, with makeshift sick-beds in the diner. He currently had a patient inside there right now.

“Hey, Starman!”

“D! I brought you the records! These’ll really help with the station!”

“They sure will, kiddo! Thank you! Now, I just wanted to--”

“Zero and Ian said they’d bring when they can, they’re just checking which ones weren’t smashed in the July Jumble days!”

“Shiny as  _fuck_ ! But I just need to tell you--”

“Pony and I were talking about how music is therapeutic the other day! Maybe you-know- who likes those _Bownie_ or _Hendries_ guys you talked about!”

“Kiddo--”

“Maybe we can play some for him and see if he chills out and it stops his cough and--” 

“Dorian, The Bastard escaped.”

______________________

It had been two days now, and the Milligram brothers were so tired of walking, that they forgot they were tired. Exhaustion and overheating became their natural state of being, like how you can’t smell oxygen.

Mike had settled for tying his sweater around his waist, but he wasn’t bothering to cover his head. The one time James had tried to buy him a hat (the clever fuck brought a pouch containing 3 months worth of allowances), they’d been at a bazaar cobbled together in the sands, and none of the sales-people _or_ shoppers would even talk to them. They either looked at them funny, or didn’t look at them at all. As far as they could tell, they didn’t even accept currency, and everything the brothers had with them was either useless for bartering, or too important to part with.

( _Food_ was one thing. Mike’s heavily protected copy of Doom Patrol #22 was another. “ _ It has the Catholic stained-glass looking cover! It’s priceless! _ ” he said, knowing full well he got it for 50 cents.)

In the end, the only thing they scored from the bazaar was a couple of fruits Mike stole from a busy store. He wasn’t aware that the shopkeeper saw him, and let him take it because she felt sorry for him. The reason she felt sorry for him was that his sweat stench suddenly got noticable enough to cover up the chemicals.

They sat as far from the crowd as they could, and peeled their oranges.

“If we can’t get new clothes, I think we should try recolour our school uniforms,” said James. “They’re too grey. I think that’s why we’re getting noticed. We don’t blend in, no one wears _grey_ out here.”

“Recolour them with what? My fuckin crayons?”

“Well if that’s all we have, we could melt it into dye--”

“FUCK no, and lose my crayons???”

“No one will sell us food and we’re gonna starve--”

“I didn’t fit in with the fuckin City and now I don’t fit in out in the desert!!” “Why didn’t you bring paint or SOMETHING?!”

“MOM AND DAD THREW MY PAINTS OUT, OKAY.”

They paused for a moment. Mike shakily peeled his orange. James did nothing. He hit a nerve.

“Mike... I’m so sorry...”

“It’s fine, kid--”

“I got stressed and asked too much, and you don’t deserve that. I’ll try snag some paints for you at the next bazaar?”

Mike smiled a little, and breathed a little laugh. “Thanks kid. My little brother’s turning to a life of crime for me.”

James giggled. “We’re already doing crime off the _shits_ just _being_ out here!”

“Oh we’re crime-ing as fuck!!”

“Yesterday I killed Gender!”

“Motherfucker was already  _ dead _ ! We just pissed on its grave!”

They laughed, as Mike handed James his last orange slice, and James handed him a stolen hat, with a “ _shhh_ ” gesture. James Milligram was truly more of a sneaky snake than Mike ever imagined.

________________________________________

Sunset. Dorian wandered through some small hills. His eyes were a little red-rimmed, but they at least weren’t wet anymore.

He’d wanted to argue with D about how he could possibly lose a whole-ass  _kid_ . He was small, but he hadn’t been that small, maybe about 12 or 14 - just a few years younger than Dorian himself. And he was loud and screamed at everyone instead of talking. Dorian wanted to demand how a doctor could lose his own patient, he wanted to blame Pony for calling him names, he wanted to yell at  _someone_ .

But he didn’t, because that isn’t what Dorian  _does_ . He knows D is better at this than anybody, he knows he didn’t mean it, he knows the kid probably didn’t care what name Pony called him. It was probably no one’s fault.

So instead he’d just been yelling at himself.

“It’s obviously _your_ fault . You scared him off!!”

“And he probably doesn’t even understand words! He never responded to anything!”

“He seemed hurt and you should have just called D to fetch him from the bush!”

“He was probably abducted by aliens!”

“Maybe if you asked mom and dad--”

“NO, if Pony or someone rats me out, I’m gonna get _so_ Spoken To! They’re gonna ask me if I thought this was the right thing or something and if I tried to find his parents or I DONT KNOW what and I know they’ll never yell at me because I get to mad at myself anyway!” 

“You can’t just expect friends to be growing off trees for you!!”

He stopped.  _A sound_ . A whisper.

_Not this shit again._

Among the dismantled remains of what had been the day’s pop-up Bazaar, two kids sat and stared at him with concern. Both in grey uniforms, one with long, badly-dyed hair and red dye patches still on his ears, the other with messy close-cropped hair and glasses and furrowed brows.

Mike looked at Dorian. Dorian looked at James. James looked at Mike. Dorian looked at Mike. James looked at Dorian. A lot of confused looking went on.

“Hey, I’m uhhh... I’m Dorian,” he said “What are your names? And uhhh... sorry but what’s the matchy clothes for?”

Mike did a little more incredulous Looking between Dorian and James. 

“ _ Dude _ ,” Mike finally said. “You’re the first fuckin’ person to talk to us in  _ days _ !!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We meet more denizens of the Zones! Tune in next time to find out if all this Confused Looking goes anywhere, if people discover soap, and if we will ever locate The Bastard


	4. The Namesakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The desert has only the smallest blessings. None of those is a scholastic book fair.

It would be difficult to say the Desert had a religion. Rather, it had  _ Lore _ , like a really intense DnD game, or maybe Percy Jackson, and some people just happened to follow it  _ very  _ closely, like a really intense DnD player, or that kid in your 7th grade homeroom who read Percy Jackson. 

But one thing many desert denizens did believe in, was miracles. Because they needed them, and they searched for them the second they first touched down on Zone ground. 

In certain parts of the Zones, you could find large warehouses filled with unexpected things, and some of those very houses contained books. Lots and  _ lots  _ of books. Some said it was a divine act of Destroya or The Phoenix Witch (whichever you believed in); others said they were just stockpiles from the Analogue Wars, when the would-be first zonerunners hid contraband or risked Battery City’s book burnings. In reality, it may have been a mix of both. 

It may have felt like a blessing to you, if you were new parents who freshly left the City, bohemians who didn’t want that life for your then-two-year-old son. You were just a few miles from The Village, and you had ample material to teach him with. You even found the novel he was named after… 

You did not, however, find Percy Jackson. 

______________________________ 

“It’s not _my_ fault I can’t get my juicy ass through this window!” 

Dorian made a face as he pulled Pony through the window of his bedroom, visibly considering just leaving him outside. “Pony, please control your language. There are children here.” 

Dorian subtly jerked his head in James’ direction specifically, and it was James’ turn to make a face. 

“Hey, I’m fourteen, I’m not a  _ kid _ ,” said James, his voice cracking teenagerly for emphasis. 

“You’re just a little baby boy, just an infant,” said Pony, who was also fourteen until about two months ago.   
  


Dorian finally encouraged Pony to do a little hip movement to get through the window frame (a hole in the wooden wall, over which you could place a mosquito net) and let the kid thump to the ground. 

“Thanks for the  _ gentle  _ entry, fucker,” said Pony, rubbing the affected butt cheek. 

“Just out of curiosity,” said Dorian, ignoring Pony entirely, “how old are you, Red?” 

“Oh  _ me _ ?” asked Mike, temporarily forgetting his own hair. “I’m sixteen.” 

“Oh me too!! What did you do for your Sixteen Spectacular? My folks couldn’t do much but they found this book for me and they talked to Dr D - he’s this guy, you’ll like him - about D letting me test-drive his van and--” 

Mike looked at him like he grew a third eye. “What’s a sixteen spectacular?” 

“Oh you know, your sixteenth birthday? It’s a name for it we have out here in The Village and--” 

“Oh, I’ve  _ heard  _ of birthdays!” 

Pony dropped the books he’d been fiddling with on Dorian’s table. “Y’ALL MOTHERFUCKERS DON’T HAVE  _ BIRTHDAYS _ ???” 

“Nah, they didn’t allow it in the City--” 

Dorian regretted Mike saying that last word, as Pony started very dramatically screaming. 

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”

“PONY MY MOM’s gonna-- AW  _ FUCK _ ” 

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAmmmmph” 

Pony was someone who liked the sound of his own voice, a little bit too much at times, and was therefore quite used to what happened next: Dorian clapped a hand over Pony’s mouth, throwing the weight of his own body against him, and pinning him against a wall until he simply got bored of trying to shriek. 

“What the  _ fuck  _ Pony, how did you not  _ know  _ they’re from the City?!” 

“GEE I DON’T FUCKING KNO--” Pony paused, because a hand obstructed his speech again. “I don’t  _ know  _ man, I’ve never  _ been there _ ! You still got memories from when you were, like, two??” 

“ _ Shut the fuck up _ , if my mom hears you, I’m toast, and I need my parents to help out if I’m gonna get these guys to safety. Got it?”

Mike spent a little stupor being taken aback that Dorian could swear, despite only knowing him for maybe an hour at this point (James, who did not respond well to yelling, simply remained quiet for general reasons). But once Mike had finished re-evaluating his mental image of the boy, he suddenly had a burning question to ask. 

“Wait, you’ve never been to the City in your life??” 

“Nope,” Pony said smugly, gently moving Dorian from the general region of his face. “I’m a sand-pup, born and bred, baby!” 

Mike frowned. “But how? I heard that newborns can’t live in the desert?? People always told me they died quickly.” 

“They tell ya that in city biology classes?” 

“Hmmm I think so,” Poison scratched his head. “I only remember two things. That, and that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. I drew dragons and dicks in most of my classes!” 

Pony giggled slightly, and Dorian smiled - briefly making accidental eye contact with James, who was also smiling, just a little bit. Unknowingly, both were thinking about how maybe they wouldn’t need too long for the other Zonerunners to accept the Milligram brothers as part of them, and that everyone would probably get along well enough with the power of friendship and that kinda shit. It's what some in the Zones would think of as a small blessing from The Witch.

“So what I think,” said Dorian after a while, “Is that I want you guys to meet my mom and dad. They can help you get to a safe place to live out here.” Dorian hoped that place would still be in the Village, but beggars can’t be choosers. It wasn’t that he was lonely, he just wanted the brothers to be near a familiar face. “You guys just need a bit of time to learn more about the Zones I think.”

“But like, it’s okay if they can’t,” said James, slightly nervously. “Like, we know enough, I got a map in the lobby district and studied up on every type of fauna and flora and--” 

“But from the City, you can’t study the people. And they can either be a danger, or the greatest help of all.” 

James frowned. He liked Dorian so far, but any time someone implied he may be wrong about something absolutely made him get a weird bad feeling in his guts. “I’ve read plenty about people roughing it out in the woods before the--” 

Mike stopped him before he could argue. “We’d love your help, and I’d love to have a friend out here, man.” 

Dorian smiled back at him. “Perfect! By the way, what did you guys say your names were?” 

“Mike,” said Mike. 

“James,” said James. “James Milligram.”   
  


“Oh  _ fuck _ …” Pony winced from where he’d dramatically splayed himself across Dorian’s favourite chair. 

“What??” asked James. 

“Well…” Dorian began, “...It’s just that… you know…”   
  


Pony finished for him. “It’s just that you guys’ names are boring as  _ shit _ .”

_______________ 

They were outside again; Dorian had loaned the boys shirts, so they wouldn’t need that obvious grey stuff they’d left the City in. The shirts fit fine, but Pony suggested they go to D’s charity box in the diner to find pants that fit them better. 

All the while, they discussed names. 

James, who was no stranger to coming up with new names for himself, was perfectly happy doing it again. He wanted to fit in with the desert, and wanted to feel a sense of power in it. In his mind, the three most powerful things in the desert were the geology, the cacti, and-- 

“I wanna be Kobra. The Kobra Kid.” 

“... Wha--?”

“What? What, Mike?? People out here name their fucking kids shit like  _ Pony _ , I can be a fucking snake!” 

Pony laughed. “He’s right!! You can tell if someone was born in the City by how fuckin’ square their name is!” 

Pony pointed a thumb at Dorian, and Mike smiled to himself. He knew Dorian’s name was anything but dull. Back in his early days of adventuring in the Lobby district, he’d grab any piece of contraband media he could get his little Sharpie-covered hands on, and devour any story.   
  
  


A friend of his, older than him - he hoped to be like her some day - she handed him a copy of “The Portrait of Dorian Gray” the day he anxiously told her he’d kissed a boy behind the school’s bleachers. 

“It’s not much,” she explained, “And it’s pretty old… but it’s the most relevant thing I had on hand.” 

Mike gently took the book, and she ruffled his then-brown hair. 

“Chin up, kiddo. The Director has a party whenever you’re sad.” 

“You think the BLi people have booze?” 

“Let’s crash their party one day and you’ll find out” 

He’d hid the book under his pillow that night. She hadn’t been in their meeting place for the past few months. 

Now, Mike was wondering if Dorian knew about his namesake. He owned enough books ( _openly visible on his shelves!!!_ ) that he probably did…   
  


“Okay, so he’s Cobra, I guess? The Cobra Kid? He likes snakes--” 

“It’s also with a K.” 

“It’s Kobra _with a_ _K_!!!!!! Oh my god that _FUCKS_!!!” Pony put an arm around him and ruffled his hair with his whole elbow. “Okay so what’s your sibling?? His name is only a little less square than yours--”   
“His is more square!!” 

Dorian gave Mike a little nudge. “I’ll take your title of Most Square if you come up with one soon?” 

Mike gave a soft, crooked smile. “I’ll think about it, okay?” 

As they walked, he looked at the sky, and tried to think about the reasons he’d escaped to the Zones in the first place. Survival was one thing. Fun was another - not superficially, but just that a city that wants you to feel no emotions makes you want to baseball-throw your own brain into a bushfire. He knew the Zones weren’t gonna be the non-stop party he’d always fantasized about. 

But he remembered the party-crashing he’d be doing if he ever got back in there. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tune in next time to find out when everyone will be called the less confusing names you all know them by!! Who fucking knows!! 
> 
> Feel free to follow my tweeter (@CanCan_jpg) and tumbmblr (cancan-jpg) and instant gram (@cancan.jpg) for art and general updates!

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everybody! This is a fic I’ve been wanting to post write for about 3 years now, ever since I posted some young Killjoys art on my Tumblr (I’m Tumblr user cancan-jpg, formerly Tumblr user iconicbois) 
> 
> The idea started based on various lively discussions I had with friends on the MCR Zine discord back in 2017, when I found out Gerard’s original “Mike Milligram” name idea for an early version of Party Poison, and I started headcanoning it as part of the backstory of the Party Poison we all know and love! As chapters progress, I’ll use the notes to credit any naming to any friends who helped provide names 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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